Steven D. Brewer's blog

I've really been enjoying reading frobnosticate, a blog by a local guy who's decided to try to take his drawing to the next level by going back to graduate school. Its been interesting watching his drawings evolve over time and its reminded me of the only art class I ever took. As an undergraduate, I majored in Biology and Spanish -- I had never felt like I had any real aptitude for drawing and, when I had to take an art class as a liberal arts requirement, I decided to take it "pass/fail", since I was worried about the time commitment. In the end, I spent more time on that class than any other I took that semester, had the time of my life, and had several pieces selected for the senior show. I haven't been drawing much lately, but with my new camera, I'm feeling like I have the ability to try to take more than just snapshots. So, with much ado, here are a few of my favorite pictures I've taken over the past couple of weeks. America from Outside Captain Austin Daniel, Jonathon, and Buzz Buzz Launches Jonathon

We went to see Michael Moore's "Sicko" yesterday afternoon. I think it is definitely his best movie so far. Sure, the trip to Cuba was a stunt, but the ideas underlying it were sound, well-justified, and well-documented. Michael really did his homework on this one.

It was really heart-wrenching to see the health-industry in the US laid bare for what it is: a place for unscrupulous people to make as much money as possible by finding any way to deny coverage to sick people. But this is a problem with capitalism as a whole. Corporations are in business to maximize profits, not the common good. Its a theme that is played out over and over in every aspect of our society: public transportation, DRM software, as well as medicine. I've thought for a long time that corporations should be required to document how they're serving the public good in order to remain incorporated -- that's how it used to be. In a global economy, however, even that might not be enough.

From the reviews I'd read, I hadn't appreciated that the movie goes beyond health-care to talk about the underlying causes of our societies ills: the way people in America, especially poor people, are systematically disempowered to discourage participation in political processes. If you can keep people fearful and demoralized, they will be afraid to rise up and do anything about it. And our political leaders seem only too happy to keep as many people as possible in that state.

We had a successful trip. We marked more than 40 mongoose dem and had around 70 captures total, including several juveniles. We caught one animal we had marked previously in 2004. We got Tom to photographically document the procedures for us.

We packed up over the course of the morning interspersed by trips to the ocean to swim. It was with significant regret that I packed up the masks, fins, and snorkels. We said our goodbyes and we all told ourselves that we'll be back again next year. Paula, Alex, and Carey were on the same flights as us, so we didn't say our goodbyes until we got to Hartford.

Our travel arrangements worked out well. Daniel checked the bottles of rum carefully when the box came off the baggage carousel to make sure none had broken. Stupid war on moisture... We arrived back around midnight and were home around 1am. Penny was happy to see me and Lucy gave us big hugs.

Today, I'm back at work.

Our Carribean adventure draws to a close today. We sat out and watched the sunset. With my green bottle of Elephant, I could imagine I was seeing the "green flash", but I guess I'll just have to try again next year. We stayed up late into the night watching meteors and talking. Carey and Alex sat with Tom and I watching the sky while the younger kids played, until Carey couldn't stand it any more and she quit trying to play grown up and ran around and played with the other kids. When I finally tracked Daniel down, playing Nintendo DS with Zach, he was so tired he couldn't walk straight and I had to steer him back to the cottage.

Today, we're planning to laze around and pack up at a leisurely pace. I went for a last early-morning snorkel adventure. I was hoping I'd see the sea turtle that magically seems to appear everytime Buzz jumps in the water, but no such luck. We need to be on the road around 1:30pm to catch our flight that will get us back to the airport around midnight and home by 2am. It's been a great adventure.

Today was probably the longest day of our expedition. Buzz, Bob, and I did the dawn mongoose patrol and then we got ready for a trip to Buck Island. I remember we considered doing Buck Island last time, but I voted against it because I didn't have any way of seeing anything while snorkeling. Snorkeling isn't much fun when you can't see anything more than 24inches away. But this time I had glued some lenses from an old pair of glasses inside a mask and it was working well enough that I was willing to give it a shot.

We arrived at the wharf around 11am. We had a few minutes to look through their souvenir shop and then to slather on the sunscreen. I thought about buying Charlie a $17 pickled centipede in a bottle (about 6 inches long), but decided to get him a t-shirt instead. I got one (a t-shirt) for Lucy too.

We got on the boat a bit before noon. It was a large catamaran. We motored out against the waves, wind and current. The waves were choppy, but some were two or three feet, I would guess. When we hit those, we'd get spray over the bow that would soak us -- it felt good.

We saw a green sea turtle. The boat passed directly over it and I got a good look -- at the silhouette, at least -- before the boat passed over.

We passed by Protestant Cay and Green Cay, before we moored at a lovely beach on the lee side of Buck Island. We stopped there for a few minutes to swim and to let people test their equipment. They had passed out fins, masks, and snorkels to people who needed them. Daniel was all set and all I needed were fins. I tried them out and they worked just fine. The beach was unbelieably steep. Just past the edge of the water, it dropped off about 5 feet. I didn't even try to climb up onto the beach. After a few minutes, we set sail for the east end of the island to dive on the reef. While we motored along, we got out the sandwiches we'd prepared and had lunch.

The reef extends like a horseshoe around the east end of the island. Outside the reef, the water is deep and dark blue. Inside, the water is turquoise. The reefs themselves are dark brown with waves rolling in and breaking on them constantly. We came up inside the line of reefs and moored about 50 yards from the reef. The lowered a stairway down into the water and I sat on the stairs, with Daniel just behind me, to put on my fins and mask.

We were required to go through a guided tour of the reef, which involved following the first-mate as he swam in and out of the reef, following a series of interpretive markers on the bottom. There were many different kinds of coral: brain corals, elkhorn, staghorn, and others -- and lots of sponges. We saw a lot of big fish: gaudy parrot fish and a million different kinds. Just as the tour ended, I saw a big school of bright blue reef fish swim by. It was amazing. After that, we were on our own.

The reef has islands of coral that stick up with lower areas between and among them, creating a maze of grottos and alleys among the coral. There are sea fans and sponges waving back and forth with the current and large, brightly colored fish darting back and forth. Its an amazing place.

Daniel was a bit nervous -- he really wanted to head back to the boat, so we did that. Left to his own devices, I think he would have simply stayed there. It took a bit of effort, but I persuaded him to go back out into the reef one more time. Holding hands, we swam back into the reef and in and out of the coral. It was a bit scary to have the twisted shapes of the coral looming up at you, while you rise and fall above it and the waves slap against your head. The snorkels worked perfectly -- I could breathe just fine and only occasionally needed to shake out a bit of water that would get inside.

After making a long circuit, we ran into Buzz, who pointed where we could see some barracuda. Daniel was very excited and swam like mad, moving ahead of me, to follow one for a while. Buzz had told him previously about having followed one which subsequently followed him and, being a good empiricist, Daniel wanted to try it for himself.

After that, Daniel was ready to go back to the boat and I went with him. I helped him get his fins off and, with the assurance he was going to stay on the boat, I went out one more time. I swam around again, losing myself in the coral one last time, and then headed back to the boat myself. I was the first one off the boat and the last one back on.

The ride back was much smoother. The opened a big shade and raised the sail for the trip in. The first mate joked around with the children: he offered Carey a snack and a soda if she would sit in the cooler. I snapped a few pictures. Instead of slapping against the waves, you could feel us moving with them: they would raise us up and push us along. Most everyone was content to sit and rest after the exertions of exploring the reef.

After we were back on shore, we went back to the Fort Christian Brewpub with Paula, Carey, and Alex for some Hammerhead Pale Ale. Before long, the captain, his mate and most of the rest of the passengers were there as well. We sat by the water, enjoying the scenery and listening to live music. Daniel and Jonathon discovered the joys of feeding the laughing gulls, which would dive to catch bits of french fries thrown into the water.

After dark, we went back into the water and tried out the new dive-light that Buzz got at the dive shop. I had wondered about not seeing any invertebrates on the rocks around Cottages by the Sea -- it turns out that they're only out at night. The rocks were covered with huge sea urchins with long spines. We didn't stay out too long, as everyone was exhausted.

Today is our last full day "on island". We need to pull in all the traps and then we're planning to go up to the LEAP place on Mahogany Road so that Buzz can pay his respects to Fletcher Pence.

I had written a few paragraphs for today, but they were lost when I had a kernel panic. That doesn't happen much anymore. I was using iPhoto when it happened -- probably a bug in Apple's new core imaging stuff.

We went to the farmer's market again on Saturday and this time all of us went. We got lots of interesting tropical fruits: genips, of course, and bananas, star fruit, and pomegranates. We also found something I hadn't seen before called "sweet apple". It has a rough, pebbly exterior and the inside is kind of slimy and full of seeds. You suck the slime off the seeds and then spit them out. It doesn't really taste like anything else, but the closest I could come up with is "very sweet, overripe banana, with watermelon seeds". We also visited the fish market. Buzz commented on the gruffness and reserve of the men who were selling fish, as compared with the humor and openness of the women selling fruit. I agreed, but pointed out how the men were happy to show the kids the different kinds of fish and pulled out a live spiny lobster for them to touch. We ended up buying a red snapper and a lobster for Tom to prepare, along with some steaks, as a "Surf and Turf Luau" later in the day.

We went on a snorkeling adventure the other day to the north side of the island. We had been there the last time I was here and I remembered that there was a current, but this year the current was extremely strong. It was so strong, there were standing waves over the large rocks and corals. Swimming into the current as hard as I could, I could only manage to stay in place. Tom, Daniel, and I swam out to the coral, but I was afraid to swim farther into the coral for fear of being swept against it and getting cut up. Today, we plan to go to Buck Island where the snorkeling is reported to be magnificent.

We met a woman travelling with her two daughters, Carey and Alexandra, who joined us on Saturday for a visit to the "Monks Bath", north of Fredriksted. The monks bath itself was less interesting than the tide pools nearby. We saw chitons, snails, hermit crabs, sea urchins, and a sea cucumber. I got a lot of good pictures of the boys and girls looking at cool stuff. They're planning to join us today on the trip to Buck Island as well.

After the luau, expertly prepared by Tom, we had movie night. We were joined by the girls and another couple of children, Zack and Ari, to watch Spirited Away. We couldn't start until after 8 waiting for Zack and Ari to get back from the French restaurant, but by 9:30 or 10, Jonathon was simply exhausted and Buzz carried him away to go to sleep. It was a big day for a little guy.

After a quick early-morning swim, we headed out to the refuge. We had been bringing animals back to cottages-by-the-sea, but this time we took the necessary stuff with us and processed them there. We found another little squeaker that was really cute.

While we were doing that, Tom and Jonathon went out on the point and saw some baby sea-turtles near the water getting dive-bombed by frigate birds. They chased the birds off, but it didn't matter -- once the remaining baby was in the water, a frigate bird snapped it up anyway. Poor little turtles...

After another swim and lunch, we went on the Cruzan Rum distillery tour. Alisa and I did that when we were here three years ago, so I had seen it before. Daniel has been very interested in rum and he seemed to enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells. I let him take a few tiny tastes of rum and he seems mystified that he doesn't like it and wonders things like "What if we mixed light and dark rum together? Would it be good then?" I bought a six-pack of rum bottles to bring back. I had wondered what the war on moisture would do to our ability to bring rum back on the plane. You have to check it, now and pay extra to have the bottles bubble-wrapped, to increase the likelihood of receiving them unbroken. Stupid war on moisture.

Once our bottles were stowed, we drove to Christiansted and walked around for a bit. There was a baobab tree in the parking lot and a genip tree just outside. Buzz let Jonathon ride on his shoulders, so Tom gave Daniel a piggy-back ride for a while. Tom is like a big toy for the boys. We spent most of our time walking along the docks and ended up at the Fort Christiansted Brew Pub. There's no hope of getting Buzz past a brewpub without going inside, so we stayed there for dinner. They had a very hoppy ale, the Hammerhead, which Buzz and I got and enjoyed a great deal. And Daniel finally got his fries.

We caught a big hermit crab the other day in one of the mongoose traps. He clung to the hardware cloth and wouldn't come out, so we just brought the trap back. Daniel spent a while trying to get him to come out, but eventually wandered off. I waited until he started to move and then startled him. He pulled back into his shell and let me roll him out of the cage. He was a handsome fellow whose shell was a good bit too small. I took some pictures of him and eventually we let him wander off.

I've been very pleased with my new camera. I'm still getting the hang of using the advanced features, but I'm starting to feel like I have mastery over the exposure and f-stop. The only shortcoming I've found is that I wish it had a split-prism in the center for focusing -- that was really handy with my old SLR.

We've been having technology difficulties with our GPS hardware. Buzz got this fancy GPS device called a "Trimble" that has been nothing but trouble. It's supposed to have resolution down to 1meter, but seems flaky and unreliable. It uses a PocketPC device to run it, but menus seem to randomly disappear at times and its a nightmare to try to operate. We eventually just decided to stick with the cheap, commercial GPS devices.

Tom arrived yesterday afternoon. Daniel and I drove over to pick him up at the airport. We had to wait a few minutes until his bag came off the conveyor, but quickly enough were headed out. He was bewildered for a moment when I started driving on the wrong side of the road, until he realized what was happening.

After picking up provisions and taking a quick plunge in the ocean, we took Tom out to the refuge to release the mongooses we'd trapped in the morning. At the end, we walked out onto the beach to show Tom some sea turtle tracks. We found one of the turtle-project people with a bunch of leather-back sea turtle hatchlings that she was getting ready to release. Daniel really enjoyed seeing them and asked the woman a bunch of questions about them.

Jonathon is very frustrated with Daniel. He doesn't like it that Daniel gets to do things that he can't do. Worse, Daniel isn't old enough to know not to rub it in. He teases Jonathon, meaning to do it in a good-natured way, but it nearly makes Jonathon foam at the mouth. Jonathon, then, looks for avenues to get back at Daniel, which encourages Daniel to reciprocate. It's tiring for all of us. In general they're doing well, but it requires a lot of maintenance and intervention to keep things running smoothly.

We've caught about 30 unique animals so far this trip. We caught a couple of cute juveniles over the past few days and a bunch of large, brutish males. We recaught an animal tagged from the previous trip in 2004 today. He was a large male with a swollen mouth and almost no teeth. We've been taking pictures of all of the animals, so going forward, we should have a database of teeth and animal appearance. (Pictured at left is a more typical individual. Don't try this at home, kiddies!)

It was a rainy day today. There were dark clouds at sunrise and it rained off and on all day. A young couple arrived yesterday from Texas who we learned were newlyweds on their honeymoon, so we joked that today was good weather for them. We got soaked going out to the field to check the traps. We were doing OK, until we got to a trap that was placed under a termite colony. Daniel balked about pulling the trap out to rebait it and then the rain started. I crawled in there, rebaited the trap, but was drenched by the time I got into the car. After a few minutes, I heard Daniel tell Buzz that he was going into some wet vegetation as "punishment" for making me get wet. But he was punishing himself.

After we got back this afternoon and had lunch, I was tired, so I decided to take a nap. Most days, it's too hot in the afternoon to consider napping, but with the clouds it was a possibility. I only slept for a couple of hours, but I felt better afterwards. I've been a bit sunburned for the past couple of days, so I've been trying to keep out of the sun anyway.

Daniel's friend Trent left today. We exchanged email addresses, phone numbers, etc. and I said I would set up Muppyville accounts for them. Daniel spent almost all of his time with Trent over the past couple of days and is somewhat at loose ends today. An interesting dynamic set up among the children. There was an older boy (Marcello) from one family, and then two boys from another (Trent, one year older than Daniel) and Hardy (a couple years older than Jonathon). Trent and Hardy had met Marcello before Daniel or Jonathon did. Marcello seemed to enjoy playing with the little kids (I think because he enjoyed being in control) and seemed to take little interest in Daniel. Jonathon loves Marcello and calls him "Marshmallow". Daniel said that when he called Marcello that, he hurt his arm. I could have told him that would happen. But now Trent and Hardy are gone and only Marshmallow is left. We're lucky that Tom's going to be here tomorrow.

For dinner, we went to The Harbor Yard, a little bar and restaurant downtown. A blackboard near the door indicated the specials: baked chicken, curried chicken, stewed goat, conch in butter, or red snapper; with rice, mac & cheese, and "provision". When we got inside, we found that there were no menus -- that was the extent of the available dishes and there was no conch after all. Daniel had really wanted fries, but when it became apparent there weren't any, he handled it amazingly well. In fact, when he asked what I thought he should get and I indicated that I thought the baked chicken would be safest, he said, "That's so boring. I didn't come all the way to St. Croix to eat baked chicken!" He almost got the stewed goat, but got the red snapper at the last minute. It was excellent and he ate most of it. I had forgotten that "provision" meant mixed vegetables.

Yesterday morning, Jonathon woke up early. As soon as he came out, it was clear to Bob and I that he wasn't well. After a few minutes, it became evident that he had an earache. It was a few hours until K-Mart opened and we could get some children's-tylenol. He was in a lot of pain and let everyone know it. Once we got him some tylenol, he promptly threw it all up. But at least some got into him and gave him some relief. Once we got back, he was ready to go swimming. Buzz is going to take him to the clinic today to make sure he doesn't need more aggressive treatment.

We've caught around 20 mongooses so far. The first day, there were more juvenile and females and on the second day, more large males. One of the males was around 850 grams -- one of the largest Buzz had ever seen. We tagged them all and collected observations and photographs. We caught so many the first day, we ran out of empty traps and had to bring some traps in without leaving a replacement in place.

The traps are getting old and worn out. Buzz and I worked to put a few broken traps into working order, or shift parts around to make a working trap from two broken ones. There was some excitement at one point when I saw a mongoose find a weak point at the back of one trap and push his way out into the car. Luckily, the driver's side door was open and he simply ran off into the bush. I wouldn't have enjoyed being in a car with a trapped mongoose. They're not very friendly.

I went shopping by myself. It's a bit scary to drive on the wrong side of the road and to go to the store all by myself. I spent just over $100 and got enough provisions to last us all several days. I'm planning to make a big pot of chili and we can also make burgers, hot dogs, and spagetti-stuff. I had gotten three boxes of macaroni the first time we went shopping, but Daniel hasn't eaten any. He's having too much fun trying new things.

Some big storms have rolled through today. Mostly to the north of us, but one good storm rolled through right here, creating puddles of water on the sidewalks that are still here this morning. Buzz said he didn't remember hearing thunder before, but we've had two storms with thunder during the afternoon. Lots of huge, towering clouds on the horizon spanned by veils of rain.

With the heavy rain, I thought it might be a good night to drive to the rainforest and try to hear coquis. Buzz calls them "genip frogs" because he says it sounds like they're saying "genip, genip". We drove up Criquee Dam Road north of Fredriksted and heard lots of genip frogs. They actually sound a lot like spring peepers. We could hear other animals -- maybe amphibians or maybe insects -- calling as well. One sounded something like a woodpecker striking a hollow tree three times "da-da-da!" We saw small frogs, but also some large Marine Toads hopping across the road. We brought back one to live in our shower for a day or two so I can take pictures. Large bats would flit in and out of the headlights. At one little pool that stretched across the road, we saw a bat flit down and touch the surface, like Noctilio, the Fisherman Bat might do. We couldn't see it well enough to make a definitive identification, but it was very exciting.

It was very important to Daniel that I make a picture of him holding an empty trap that says "i has invisible mongoose". I explained to him that most people won't be able to get the joke because they would never expect a trap like that to be used to catch mongooses, but he didn't mind. I hope he's happy with the picture. I did it in gimp, although when I discovered I couldn't make shadowed type, the gimp guys would tell me I should be using Inkscape for this kind of stuff.

Our nocturnal adventure seems to have made everyone else sleep in late this morning. I'm sitting out at the table with a cup of coffee enjoying the company of the anoles and grass quits. Soon, I expect I'll see the little blue herons and night herons come in to start looking for breakfast. Today is starting clear, with only a few puffy clouds on the horizon. Time to get started.